**CHAPTER X**
When Jake would awaken from his slumber, he would find that the once warm body beside him had grown cold. The blood and rainwater that had covered him was freezing as well, and it caused him to shiver harshly where he lay. He clutched onto the older Hunter a bit tighter, shivering, but for the first time, he felt no warmth from the other's body. He then realized he could no longer hear his friend's labored breathing, either.
Bewildered, Jake let go of the other Hunter, and sat up to look down at him.
Realization came slowly, and with it came a feeling Jake didn't know existed. It was akin to having something shove its hand into his chest and stab its talons deep into his heart. He hissed softly and clutched at his chest, having to avert his eyes or the pain would only continue. His eyes began to burn and his vision blurred as his eyes began to water, he didn't understand what was happening to him.
He got up and staggered almost drunkenly from the building, wanting suddenly nothing more than to just get away. He didn't get very far, as he fell against the building opposite and sat there for the longest time, just staring at nothing.
Slowly his gaze fell to the person lying dead not far from him. The man still had his backpack on, and coiled on the side of it was more of the same rope that had been used to ensnare him the night before. An idea began to form in the Hunter's mind as he remembered there was still a survivor out there.
His inhuman eyes darkened with something truly evil, as he pushed himself off the wall, and walked down the alley in the direction he'd seen said survivor run.
The rest of the day and night would be spent tracking down that man, and nothing more. The determination and hatred that Jake felt now was more powerful and more focused than anything he'd ever felt before. Nothing could deter him from his goal, not even hunger, or the cold rain that fell from the unforgiving sky.
He would find his target only when the sun was just below the horizon, and twilight was ending. The man had wandered rather far for a lone survivor, but that could have been due to the fact that there weren't many infected around to attack him. Jake and his friend had pretty much wholly taken over this part of town. How long that was going to last now that his friend wasn't going to be around anymore, he didn't know.
But that didn't matter now.
The lone survivor was sitting inside the shelter of an entryway to a building. He didn't appear to have his guard up as he should have; he was just lying there on his side, curled in the fetal position. Jake watched him for a while from the vantage point of a rather large window that belonged to a second floor apartment.
He looked behind himself at the room. It was completely bare aside from the garbage scattered everywhere. There was no carpet on the dirty wood floor, or any dusty old furniture that he was so used to seeing in places like this. It was obvious the place was abandoned even before the infection spread. Slowly, ideas began to form in his mind as he looked over the place.
It would be a few minutes longer before he leaped down into the wet street below, and began to approach his prey without fear or indecision. The man didn't even notice him until he was underneath the entryway's sheltering roof as well, standing not eight feet away. The Hunter saw as his prey looked up, and he watched as the fear entered his eyes. He knew then that the man must have lost his weapon; otherwise he would be seeing it now.
His prey sat up and backed away, pressing his back to the corner. Jake felt no pity as he saw the way the man cowered before him, he was on a mission and still, nothing was going to stop him.
"Please, don't hurt me," The survivor said, the desperation in his tone was obvious.
The Hunter only bared his teeth in an animalistic snarl as he slowly approached.
"Y-you're just sick, I can help you," The survivor continued.
Jake hissed deeply, and without warning, he grabbed the man by the shirt and, with little effort, pulled him down and then slammed him face first onto the pavement. The survivor began to struggle, saying a few more useless things before the Hunter grabbed the back of his head and slammed it repeatedly against the sidewalk. There was a growing pool of blood underneath them now, and the Hunter bared his teeth at the sight and smell of it. Abruptly he realized his hunger, and a loud growl rose in his throat as he smashed the survivor's head against the pavement one last time, and just held him there.
All struggling had ceased, but Jake could tell that the survivor was at least semi-conscious. With a sharp snarl, he suddenly stood and began to drag his prey along with him back toward the apartment building. He wanted a secluded area where he wouldn't be interrupted, no matter what the odds were of that actually happening.
It took a bit of effort to carry the man up into that room, and Jake threw him down immediately after entering through the window. The survivor rolled onto his stomach and tried to crawl away, and in response, Jake leaped forth and slammed the man down hard, successfully ending his pathetic attempt at escape. The survivor screamed in agony as the Hunter's claws stabbed deeper and deeper into his shoulders. Blood was still pouring from his nose, and the smell of it was making the Hunter's mouth water.
Never before had Jake taken so much pleasure in hearing something scream. He flexed his fingers just to hear it again, until the survivor's throat cracked under the strain. He sneered as he finally tore his claws from the man's body, and without giving the survivor more than a second to catch his breath, he grabbed him by the hair and wrenched his head back so far that his chest partially left the floor.
For a while, the Hunter just watched as the man struggled to breathe without inhaling his own blood. He narrowed his eyes a bit as the survivor tried to speak to him again, begging him to stop. Jake was just happy to know that his prey wasn't giving up yet; the night was still young, after all.
He released the man's hair, which allowed his head to fall back against the hard wood floor with a loud, painful 'thud'. The Hunter then dug his claws in and tore from the man's shoulder blades to the small of his back in one violent movement. Jake purred in delight at the sound of his prey's pained cry, and watched as the blood welled up and soaked into his shredded light blue shirt. He ran his hand over it, smearing the dark fluid over his skin and the fabric.
After a few moments of this, the Hunter got off of his prey to flip him over onto his back. Blood-loss and pain had weakened the man, but he still struggled slightly and tried to fight as Jake tore his shirt open to expose his torso. It wasn't difficult to slash the man's wrist and snap his tendon as he tried to fight back; this was effective enough in getting him to stop squirming for a while.
It was then that Jake went for the face. He plunged his thumbs deep into the man's eye sockets, his claws piercing into and effectively destroying the soft tissue that resided inside. Blood welled up and poured out, and the man began to struggle, grabbing hold of the Hunter's arm and pulling at it desperately. Jake only gritted his teeth and hissed in pleasure, listening to the man's screams of pain.
Still with his thumbs buried deep into the man's eye sockets, he gripped the survivor's head and slammed it once against the floor, knocking the sense from him momentarily. He then tore his hands away quickly, and heard the blood splatter against the floor as he raised them, just before he slammed his fists into the survivor's face.
The man now lay still beneath the Hunter, but he wasn't dead. For a long time Jake simply sat straddling his prey, staring down at him, and the only sound in the room was his own heavy breathing, and the soft pattering of rain outside.
As his breathing calmed, the silence began to consume him. He growled softly in the back of his throat, and tipped the survivor's head to the side with a claw to stare at his vulnerable neck. He was on the verge of ending this now, just to feed the hunger burning in his stomach. He licked the blood from his own lips, feeling slightly dizzy as he tried to resist.
This feeling was something he didn't understand. He'd never wanted to prolong a kill like this. His instincts demanded he finish this, and yet his sudden and desperate desolation drove him to draw it out, if only to appease the loneliness that had already developed. He had no one now, except this, one of the creatures he was programmed to kill and feed upon.
It took a while, but eventually he managed to wake the man up again, and the torment began anew. Blind and in pain, the survivor was even more frantic than Jake expected him to be when consciousness returned. He screamed and flailed, but even so, the Hunter delighted in keeping him down and cutting him up even more in the process.
The struggle didn't last long. Even after the Hunter tore open the man's stomach, there was no more fighting back, and his cries were soft and weak. Jake worked with a sadistic fervor; hitting any sensitive area he could that would make the man react. He desperately needed the response, no matter how feeble it happened to be.
Hours passed but it didn't feel like that long to the Hunter, who was now stabbing his claws into his prey's eye sockets again in an attempt to get him to move. The survivor had stopped responding just seconds before, and now, back in the wretched silence, Jake realized that the sun had already begun to rise outside. Finally, he allowed himself to eat, ripping off chunks of flesh ravenously. His little feeding frenzy didn't last long though; he couldn't seem to hold onto much of an appetite.
Afterward, he'd leave, climbing to the top of the building to look out at the city. Perching beside a small gryphon-like gargoyle, he gazed at the new day, watching as the colors of the sunrise began to appear.
The sight absolutely sickened him.
With a sneer, he turned and headed off, intent on finding something else to kill before he decided to nap for a while.
((()))
The full moon rode high in the sky, illuminating the city and making it more than easy for Jake to focus on his prey in the street below. As he stared at the herd of deer down there, all he could think about was how he wished his friend was still alive to join him in the kill again. How he missed that feeling…
It had been close to two weeks, and Jake still thought about his old friend nearly every day, usually fleeting thoughts such as this, but however fleeting, they always incited the same response in him: kill and maim any living thing in sight, it usually tended to lessen the pain of his grief and loneliness at least for a little while.
Suddenly, he lunged forth, arms outstretched as he fell from the sky, claws extended for the one he'd selected. Distress cries, the sound of hooves as the herd fled, and of course, the sound of blood splattering the pavement and the deafening Hunter's screech split the air of what used to be a silent, peaceful night.
Jake didn't stop at one. He sprang after the herd, landing on the back of a fawn, snapping its back before he went after the rest. He'd grown so agile, he suffered almost no injuries whatsoever after successfully taking down two more healthy adults and leaving them bleeding to death in the street with torn throats. The rest managed to escape after the herd split in random directions; the Hunter wasn't that determined to have them all.
He turned around and headed back, just in time to see the last deer he'd caught falling to the sidewalk, blood still spraying from the torn artery in its neck while it struggled to get back on its feet. He raised his lip a bit at the sight, and passed it by. He ignored the fawn and the other adult as well, heading back for the buck he'd taken down first; that was the one he really wanted.
That's when a very unexpected sight greeted him. There was a small figure crouched over his kill; another Hunter! He wasted no time, dropping on all fours as he took off running at the intruder. The newcomer looked up quickly, and Jake saw its dark, frightened eyes just before he slammed into the much smaller figure and they went tumbling in the street.
Jake landed on all fours and turned swiftly to face the newcomer, snarling loudly as he slowly approached its prostrated form. Before it could get up, Jake grabbed it by the shoulders and pinned it face first against the pavement. He realized now just how small this Hunter was, probably more than a foot shorter than him, and much skinnier. He heard its high pitched whimper, and it squirmed in pain as his claws dug into its flesh.
Even with these observations, Jake still found that there was something much different about this Hunter than the others he'd encountered so far. Now more curious than angry, he dislodged his claws and ran his hand down its back, observing its dark green hoodie with curiosity. After a moment, he got up a bit and forcefully flipped the young one over, causing yet another short distressed cry.
As he stared down at it, he realized then what was so different about this Hunter: it was a female, and a very young one at that. Or maybe she was just naturally quite small; he really had no way of telling. As he looked down at her frightened face, though, he felt his anger all but disappear.
Slowly, he got off of her, and allowed her to squirm away and run off. She stopped a short distance away and looked back at him, her head tilted slightly as if curious. He lowered his head a bit, and then turned to return to his kill, pretending to ignore her presence as he tore into the animal's haunch with his claws.
He continued to ignore her, as he sensed her approach. She moved so cautiously and slowly it actually started to annoy him a bit. He looked at her; she was only about four feet away, and she stopped dead in her tracks when their gazes met. He simply looked away and went back to picking at his kill.
This seemed to give her more courage, and she crawled over the rest of the way. He watched her out the corner of his eye as she experimentally pressed her hands against the animal's neck, and when he made no move to reprimand her, she finally started to tear into the carcass as well.
He wondered how such a tiny thing managed to survive out here, lurking on the edge of his territory like this. A part of him wondered, too, if his friend had known about her. She didn't look like she was recently infected by any means.
Whatever the case was, it felt good to not be alone anymore.
A/N: Wow I don't think it's ever taken me this long to update on this story, sorry guys. Heh, had a busy couple ... months, with camping, the fair, and all sorts of other stuff that I'm sure none of you are extremely interested in. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, we still have a little ways to go before the end, so hang in there.